


Glow

by ZXSpectrum



Series: 100 Themes Challenge (DAS) [16]
Category: Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, 碧蓝航线 | Azur Lane (Video Game)
Genre: Death, Dungeon Crawling, Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28648089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZXSpectrum/pseuds/ZXSpectrum
Summary: Deep in a dungeon, a party of brave villagers are on their way to face a wizard that threatens their homes. Way over their heads, near-certain death awaits them.
Series: 100 Themes Challenge (DAS) [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/39068
Kudos: 2





	Glow

It had been quite a struggle to come here, but the quest was far from over. The seven girls, formerly nine, were resting in the dark rectangular room, illuminated only by a few torches on the walls, composed of roughly worked stone bricks, like the dirty floor. An air of danger lay in the air, not helped by the mild animalistic stench that seemed to have no clear source.

Z1 looked over her companions. Like herself, a mere rice farmer, they were just peasants, way over their heads. They were no heroes. They had no business braving the depths of this dungeon. But there was nobody else who could save their village from the threats that lurked here.

They were composed of small groups. Z1’s also had Z2, a merchant who originally came from a foreign country, and Leipzig, an ostler in it.

The second group was the one of Z35, an animal trainer, whose pony was eaten by a strange creature before they even arrived here. Aside from her, there was also Z36, a rather eccentric grave digger. Z26 would also be there, but she was mauled by another creature earlier.

Lastly, there’s Karlsruhe, a strong woodcutter, accompanied by Köln, a not-so-strong scribe. She too used to have a third person in her party but… well, Z1 preferred not to be reminded of Königsberg’s corpse, bisected by a blade trap.

An unlikely band only held together by their bravery. Which, due to their lacking ability, had a suicidal quality to it. There’s no doubt that more of them would lose their lives in this dangerous depths.

“So, where do we go now?” Z1 wondered aloud, looking to the exits. Aside from the open hallway they came from, there were two doors on different ends of the room. There was nothing distinguishing them, they were both in a bad shape, probably badly constructed in the first place, and the dark wood rotten.

“Hm…” Z2 looked over to one of the doors, left of the hallway. “Let me see.” She walked over to it and bend down, peering through the keyhole. “Huh? I think there’s a…”

Suddenly, the door burst open, throwing her back from the impact. As Z2 sailed through the air and smashed down on the ground, the other six were startled to see a monster rush into the room. It was an ugly thing, like pretty much everything here, its hunched over, bloated-looking body had pale red skin that was littered with swellings and it had a large mouth with pointy teeth, from which greenish saliva dripped.

After the initial surprise, the other relentlessly attacked it, hacking and stabbing at the creature that wailed in a cacophonous shriek and thanks to their superiority in numbers, they managed to kill it quickly without getting hurt themselves in the process. However, the monster’s disgusting carcass wasn’t the only body in the room that wasn’t moving anymore.

“I think… she’s dead,” Z35 said sadly, checking Z2 body. No heartbeat, no breathing. She died as soon as the door burst open. Considering how weak she was, it wasn’t surprising.

“…We can’t do anything for her,” Z1 said. “Let’s move on.”

Somewhat toughened by all the death they experienced, everyone was in agreement. Only Leipzig threw a last look back to the corpse, as they went through the now empty doorway.

Carefully, the remaining six walked through the hallway. It didn’t take long until they could see something glowing green in the darkness ahead and as they came close, they noticed that those lights peppered the walls to either side. At some point, the bricked hallways ended, giving way to what seemed to be a natural cave system. Although it might also be mined. Now they could also see the source of the lights: Rocks that stuck in the rough cave walls, bathing the hallway in a green glow. They look strangely pretty, yet there was also something eerie about them.

“Wow…” Z35 said, her eyes wide. “So pretty…” She walked over to one side, her gaze stuck at one of the rocks, ignoring the “be careful” from Köln behind her. Something compelled her to reach out to it and before she knew it, her hand grasped the smooth, round surface of the glowing stone.

The others watched with worry and suspicion as she stood there, her hand on the stone, not moving or saying anything. “Z35? Are you alright?” Leipzig said after a few seconds, walking up to her.

Only for Z35 to whip around in the next moment and sink her teeth into her shoulder.

Leipzig screamed in pain and horror and out of reflex shoved her back, causing the teeth to scratch her body. At that moment, Z1 raised her pitchfork, ran up to them and stabbed Z35 with full force, pinning her against the wall.

Now that they had a better look at her, they saw that Z35’s eyes were a pure white, no irises, no pupils, while her teeth had turned to fangs. Some red were on several of them, no doubt the blood that was leaking from Leipzig’s shoulder. She let out bestial screeches as she flailed at them, erasing any doubt that any humanity was gone from her.

As such, Karlsruhe felt little remorse when her handaxe cleaved her face in two.

Z35’s lifeless body fell to the ground like a heavy sack, as soon as Z1 pulled her pitchfork out, blood pouring out of what was once her face, staining the cave floor. The remaining girls didn’t mourn much, before they pressed on.

Their steps slowed down when another light could be seen from some distance and they were especially careful when they approached and heard voices. It seemed like some creatures were talking to each other, but it was hard to say for sure. The language that sounded like grunts from wild animals was not known to them. Probably to no human being.

As they got close enough, the group saw that the light came from a larger room, that had another passage in the rough stone wall opposite of the one they were in. Nothing else could be seen, so the creatures were probably closer to the ends of the room they couldn’t see from the passage.

“Doesn’t seem to be more than two,” Z1 said, intently listening to the voices. She felt disgust from those sounds.

“Great, then they shouldn’t be much of a problem,” Z36 said with a grin. “Follow me!”

Nobody followed the grave digger as she ran into the room, only Köln shouted “Stop!” to no avail.

“Hear me, foul beasts!” Z36 yelled as she stood in the middle of the room, looking to one side and striking a weird pose. “Your time is up, for we are-!”

She didn’t get any further, as a crossbow bolt hit her right between her eyes, which was followed by loud roars that came from both unseen ends of the room. The remaining adventures quickly ran away, before Z36’s corpse had even hit the ground.

Quickly, the four made their way back to the room, occasionally stumbling over the somewhat uneven ground, but never slowing down in fear of being pursued. The roars got quieter and quieter, it appeared that the creatures didn’t follow them, but they never stopped until they reached the room they came from.

Again, they made rest here, as they were too out of breath to continue. Thankfully, nothing could be heard anymore, so there was no need to hurry further. But having just lost another companion and seeing the corpse of Z2 again, everyone felt pretty queasy. Especially Leipzig, who was still suffering under the bite she received from Z35. “I feel terrible,” she remarked, looking to the wound in her shoulder. “Am I…?”

“Let’s hope not,” Z1 interrupted her. She didn’t want to think of the possible consequences of Leipzig’s wound and also didn’t want to lose another of her companions. “We shouldn’t be hasty. If… something happens to you, we will deal with it then.”

“If it’s not too late,” Köln added. Nobody objected, as everyone was thinking the same.

“…Only one way to go,” Karlsruhe said after a while and everyone turned to the other door. Carefully, Köln opened it, glad to see nothing but another empty hallway behind. As they moved through it, they realized that it was much the same as the other one, changing to a cave system lined with green glowing rocks. This time, everyone made sure to stay far away from them.

And it was a long cave, going much further in than the other one, the trail of glowing rocks seemingly endless. While they provided sufficient light, it was not enough to tell what lay in the darkness ahead, making them constantly feel uneasy and wary. Strength in numbers meant little when their numbers were so easily decimated.

The end of the seemingly natural hallway was hinted at by the lack of glowing rocks on one side. Sure enough, it opened up into a huge vertical chamber, the rocks peppering the walls that went deep down. However, what really drew the party’s attention was the gigantic crystal, glowing similarly to the rocks, albeit in a deep red, that seemed to levitate at the bottom of the chamber and reached nearly up to the highest level. A person wearing a dark robe, its hood obscuring his face, was standing in front of it.

“Jackpot,” Z1 said with a grin, her hands clenching her pitchfork. She felt a mix of excitement and anger as she looked at the wizard that plagued their village with his monsters for too long, stealing their resources, kidnapping and even murdering their people and threatening to destroy them all. There were no words to express just how much she was looking forward to kill him.

“Let’s not get too hasty,” Köln said. “We don’t know what he’s up to or even what he can do. One false move and we might be all dead.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Z1 wanted to get him as quickly as she could, but she knew that Köln was right. “So, how do we…”

“There are stairs here!” Karlsruhe interrupted her, pointing to one edge of the platform they were currently on. Getting closer, they could indeed see a series of steps leading down to another platform, where Köln could faintly make out other stairs. The glow of the rocks was only brushing them, making them easy to miss.

Their next course of action clear, the four slowly made their way down, careful not to miss any steps and not be too loud. As they came closer to the bottom, they could hear some kind of incantation coming from the wizard, although the language was utterly alien, as if no human tongue could ever speak it. How he was able to was a mystery. But hearing it filled them with dread, but also determination as they realized that whatever was going on here was wrong on a deep, cosmic level. That the wizard must not be allowed to finish his work. And continue to exist.

After they arrived at the platform and began to descend the next set of stairs, Leipzig, who in her state had trouble seeing the steps properly, misjudged one and slipped. “Aaah!” she shrieked as she was about to fall off, before Karlsruhe caught her arm and pulled her back on the stairs.

Only to hear the wizard chanting a different spell. It sounded like human speech and otherworldly growling a the same time, unholy sounds that made every part of their bodies shiver. But that was nothing compared to the horror they felt when suddenly skeletons materialized up and down the stairs, two on each side.

Getting her wits together fast, Z1, who stood at the lower end of the group, swung her pitchfork, sweeping one skeleton from the stairs. A moment later, a satisfying shattering of bones could be heard from further down. She tried to brace herself for the next undead, but it was faster, striking her arm with a jagged, sword. Groaning in pain, she resisted the urge to hold the bleeding wound, instead waving her weapon threateningly against the skeleton, causing it to back off a bit.

Meanwhile, Karlsruhe hacked at one of the upper skeletons, destroying it quickly. However, another one behind it was armed with a shortbow and took aim at her. She managed to dodge the shot that followed… but right behind her stood Köln, who could only let out a startled “Ah!” before the arrow pierced her body, causing her to cough up blood up. That was the last thing she did in her life, before she collapsed and fell off the stairs, landing on the lowest floor with a sickening crunch.

“W-what… have I…” Karlsruhe looked in horror at the spot where Köln just stood, enabling the skeleton to draw its sword and close in on her. However, Leipzig lunged forward, ignoring the queasy feeling in her body, and struck down with her staff, putting her entire strength in the blow. Fortunately, it was enough to crush the skull and the undead creature fell down on the stairs, the bones rattling loudly as the body slid down the steps before it stopped.

After narrowly avoiding another attack, Z1 threw the last skeleton off the stairs and hurried down, followed by her remaining two companions. “Now we have you!” she shouted, as she stood before the wizard, pointing her pitchfork towards him. “You won’t plague our village anymore! I hope you’re rea…”

“Hyaaargh!” Karlsruhe interrupted her, dashing past her towards the wizard. Z1 could only watch, puzzled by her behavior, until Karlsruhe abruptly halted just as she was right in front of him. It was as if time had stopped, as she was still in a running pose, one leg raised, holding her axe above her head. The wizard reached out to her with one hand. The red glow of crystal behind, framing the bodies of the two, made the scene look particularly sinister.

One moment later, Karlsruhe’s head downright exploded, showering the area around her with blood and other things the remaining two didn’t dare to mention.

And that was far from the worst.

Their focus shifted to the wizard, whose hood was pulled back now. And both Z1 and Leipzig tried to scream in sheer horror, only for the voices to die in their throats.

That thing in front of them had a putrid blue skin, seemingly peppered with pus. At least 18 eyes were on its face, all of different kind, but none human. And only a few seemed to belong to animals they knew, most of the other ones must have come from creatures that normally couldn’t, and never should, be found in this dimension. It’s mouth, at least it was were most people had one, was a large circular orifice, lined with fang teeth and with three extremely thin and pointy purple tongues, more like tentacles in appearance, swirling around there.

Despair washed over the two. How could they ever hope to defeat this otherworldly and powerful creature?

It was that despair that caused Z1 to hurl her pitchfork at the huge glowing crystal, not really believing that it would achieve anything. All the more was she surprised when it hit and remained stuck and several cracks appeared in the crystal.

The monster let out an inhuman screech, while the crystal began to break behind it, and pointed a finger towards Z1. At the next moment, all her flesh was stripped off her body and her skeleton collapsed on the floor.

However, the wizard followed her after, lifelessly dropping down as the crystal apart, red shards flying everywhere. It’s body melted into a blue slime, emitting a foul stench.

And then it was over.

Leaning on her staff, Leipzig stared in disbelief at the scene in front of her. The corpses of her companions and the wizard, the shards that lay everywhere. Miraculously, none of them had hit her. “Is… is it over?” she wondered aloud. The shards had gone dark, the glowing green rocks the only things that illuminated the huge chamber. It was oddly comforting, despite all the darkness in here.

After she rested a few moments, Leipzig made her way up and out of the dungeon. Her feelings were mixed. She felt sorrow, as all her companions had died horribly in here. Yet at the same time, she was glad that the wizard was dead. Even moreso, now that she knew that he wasn’t even human. However, she was also worried about herself, as she was still feeling rather sick. At least, she felt that she could still go on rather easily. For now.

But above all, she felt hope. Hope that there was a tomorrow for her and her people. And that whatever may threaten them in the future, they might be able to deal with it.

* * *

At night, in the cafeteria of the Azur Lane base, four shipgirls sat around a table, a bunch of sheets, dice and pencils in front of them. Z23 just closed a binder, putting it on top of a book. “So, how was it?” she asked the others. “I hope I wasn’t too harsh. Maybe I should have spared Z2, her death was pretty unfair.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Z1 replied. “She did fail her saving throw and all. And she was weak as hell in the first place. I thought it was pretty awesome, though. And I got to save the day at the end.”

“Yeah, but I get now why you’re supposed to make more than one character,” Karlsruhe added. “You die really fast in this. It’s nothing like the game we played last week.”

Z23 nodded. “That one was a modern game and this… well, it’s modern too, but it’s designed to be like old roleplaying games. You died easily in them.”

“You really have to be careful and can’t do dumb things all the time,” Z35 said with a self-deprecating smile. In last week’s game, her character did some questionable things that Z23 let pass, since the system was more forgiving.

“Sorry,” Z23 replied. “Normally, I would have let you make new characters and join in again, but since we were getting close to the end…”

“It’s fine,” Z35 said. “It was a good lesson and I had fun too. I’d like to play it again.”

Everyone was in agreement here. But while she was happy about that, Z23 was puzzling whether to play that system again next time or try something new. There were a number of other RPGs she’d like to try out, after all. Before today’s session of DCC, they only played the popular Iron Blood game that features a very detailed game world. But there was so much more than those two. Like that cyberpunk/fantasy mix or the horror game where your characters often get insane. Not to mention the game about knights of old Royal Navy legends, unconventional but interesting. And of course, several editions of the fantasy game from the Eagle Union that started it all…

Well, no reason to beat herself up over this. They would have much more game nights and enough time to play and try out all they wanted…

**Author's Note:**

> Ironically, the one time I attended a session of DCC, the mortality rate was relatively low. For instance, I only had one character dying and I think there was a player who didn't lose a single one. The deadliness of the system still came across, though.
> 
> I've had the idea to do fics, where characters of one work play a P&P RPG, since a while. Odd as that concept is, there are others who have done that before (but, from what I saw, differently than I would). So, there might be more such things, and bigger ones, in the future.


End file.
